Families near Cuadrilla's proposed fracking sites could be in line for benefits worth more than £6,000 each, with just 130 households expected to see the "lion's share" of up to £800,000 promised to local communities, the company has disclosed.

The shale gas explorer on Tuesday announced plans to frack for shale gas next year at two sites near Roseacre Wood and Little Plumpton, between Blackpool and Preston.

It had promised local communities £100,000 for each well that is fracked and says it wants to frack up to four wells at each site.

Francis Egan, chief executive, told the Telegraph that "the lion’s share" of those benefits were expected to go to the communities in immediate proximity to the drilling sites.

Cuadrilla said there were just 130 households in the immediate locality of the two sites - in the communities of Roseacre, Little Plumpton and Great Plumpton.

The £100,000 payment will be made into a community fund as soon as drilling operations begin on each well.

The Community Foundation for Lancashire has been tasked with distributing the promised benefits in consultation with local communities and deciding who is eligible.

Payments to individual households have not been ruled out, although the cash could also be spent on wider community projects. “It's up to communities to decide that, not us," Mr Egan said.

Proposed fracking sites

"The Community Foundation will be responsible for coordinating a consultation into how local residents and community groups would like to see that funding distributed for public benefit and will administer the scheme to ensure a transparent process that delivers benefit to the community," Cuadrilla said.

The village of Wharles, which appears almost as close to the Roseacre Wood site as Roseacre itself, according to maps supplied by the company, is not counted in the 130 households figure given by Cuadrilla.

However it will be included in a consultation by the Community Foundation so could still benefit.

Mr Egan said he imagined there would be "some [beneficiaries] beyond the sites".

"We will look at, for example, transportation - if there's people impacted not immediately beside the side but close by," he said.

Drilling could commence around the end of this year, with fracking taking place early in 2015, subject to planning and permitting.

An artist's impression of the fracking site at Preston New Road

Cuadrilla has also promised a one per cent share of any revenues to the local communities if it successfully produces gas.

However, the benefits have been attacked as inadequate by politicians in the north-west, including the leader of Lancashire County Council, which will be the authority for Cuadrilla’s planning applications. MPs have called the amount "derisory".

Bur Mr Egan said: "We need to get through the exploration phase. Arguing about how much revenue from production is possibly a little premature now."

He said that if 10pc of the gas in the Bowland shale could be recovered it could equate to £140bn in revenues, and insisted that a 1pc share - £1.4bn - was not "derisory", especially as the company did not yet know how profitable drilling would be.

"We may find we can't afford 1pc, in which case it won't be economic," he said.

Other companies such as IGas, which is drilling at the protest-hit Barton Moss site near Manchester, are so far only drilling to take shale rock samples and have not confirmed whether they intend to frack at the sites.